Thursday, March 20, 2014

Actual Jubilation in Crimea vs. Orchestrated Celebration in Iraq: Can You Spot the Difference?

I. Actual Jubilation in Crimea

The first three videos embedded below are coverage of the celebrations in Crimea regarding the referendum to join Russia. The first is news and footage from western mainstream media sources and the next two contain raw footage provided by RT, the Russian-based television network.

I thought it was prudent to supply the news from the western sources so there would be no doubt as to the authenticity of the footage, just in case anyone thought that the jubilation in Crimea and Russia were orchestrated. We can now move onto Iraq, since there is nothing more to say about Ukraine and Crimea that hasn’t already been said HERE, HERE, and HERE.

This event was staged. The crowd was small, gathered by the coalition forces, and surrounded by the U.S. military. To complete this farce, in response to what was taking place, Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense at the time, told reporters:

“The scenes of free Iraqis celebrating in the streets, riding American tanks, tearing down the statues of Saddam Hussein in the center of Baghdad are breathtaking. Watching them, one cannot help but think of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Iron Curtain.”

The Toppling: How the Media Created the Iconic Fall of Saddam's Statue

“I watched BBC World in the lead-up to the toppling. The square was largely empty except for three strategically positioned U.S. Abrams tanks and an armored personnel carrier plus a small paltry crowd of 100 or so, many of then apparently journalists. A BBC World news presenter kept asking, ‘Where is everybody?’”

"Frankly, the main mood [in Downing Street] is of unbridled relief. I've been watching ministers wander around with smiles like split watermelons." (BBC News At Ten, April 9)…

"[Blair] said that they would be able to take Baghdad without a bloodbath, and that in the end the Iraqis would be celebrating. And on both of those points he has been proved conclusively right." (Marr, BBC 1, News At Ten, April 9, 2003)…”

Below you will find four pictures: two wide angle shots of the square showing the small crowd surrounded by the U.S. military, one close up picture of the crowd surrounding the statue, and the fourth, most telling of all, a U.S. soldier draping an American flag on the head of Saddam Hussein’s statue. A video interview with this soldier follows the pictures. (click images to enlarge)

“During his presidency, Bill Clinton presided over the most devestating regime of economic sanctions in history that the UN estimated took the lives of as many as a million Iraqis, the vast majority of them children. In May of 1996, 60 Minutes aired an interview with Madeline Albright, who at the time was Clinton’s UN Ambassador. Correspondent Leslie Stahl said to Albright, ‘We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And — and you know, is the price worth it?’

“Madeline Albright replied ‘I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it.’”

“Critics point to the Russian ‘occupation’ of Crimea as evidence that no fair vote could have taken place. Where were these people when an election held in an Iraq occupied by U.S. troops was called a ‘triumph of democracy’? Perhaps the U.S. officials who supported the unconstitutional overthrow of Ukraine's government should refocus their energies on learning our own Constitution, which does not allow the U.S. government to overthrow governments overseas.”